When Tony Agnesi contacted T&B to discuss his upcoming book launch I couldn’t wait to begin the process. Tony has been a friend, mentor, and colleague of mine since the late ‘90’s and is an amazing success story, as well as one of the most genuine people you will ever get to meet.

I thought this project was a perfect case study of how T&B works with a client from the end-goal backwards to formulate a plan to bring the project to life.

In our initial meeting, Tony described his vision for a newly designed web site; the features, the content, the look and feel. Beyond that we discussed the design of the book itself from layout to cover art ideas. The meeting continued with discussion of how Tony intended to market the book launch using a mix of email, social media, and guest appearances on popular podcasts. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we discussed the desired timeline for when Tony wanted the book to be available to the public and set the deadline.

From End to Beginning

With Fall of 2017 set for a target launch, we were able to review all of the items needed to pick the most logical starting point: A Photoshoot. Tony’s book is based on life experience, both personal and professional. Having spent decades in radio broadcast, Tony’s book theme is “A Storyteller’s Guide…”

With that in mind, Tony himself plays a central part in the brand’s identity. Not only is he the author of this first book, he is the “Storyteller” in the theme. Creating a website, support marketing graphics, etc. will require identifying Tony to the audience.

During each photoshoot, T&B utilizes multiple wardrobe changes, poses, and props to provide dozens of different looks to choose from for artwork and design later in the process.

Bringing The Main Product To Life

By utilizing some of the selected photos from the shoot, T&B was able to provide Tony several mock-up book cover designs to consider and provide us with feedback of his likes and dislikes. Ultimately, Tony shared some of his favorite designs with other trusted friends and business acquaintances to see which design they liked best. This “controlled focus group” produced a clear winner to begin building out the branding elements.

With the shoot complete and initial design of the book cover complete, T&B worked with Tony to identify which photos we felt best captured the “Storyteller’s” identity on camera. With the pictures selected for use, T&B begins to clean each image and apply designs for consideration.

When the final design concepts are agreed upon, T&B can then begin the “heavy-lifting” applying those concepts to the “look-and-feel” of a new website design. Again, both Tony and his book share the spotlight. Tony shared with T&B other author and public figure sites that he liked which allowed us to build a framework for Tony that was inline with not only showcasing Tony and the book, but including content items that helped enhance the “Storyteller’s” persona – such as blogging, podcasting, and inspirational quotes and stories.

Once Tony completed the book editing process, we were able to work with all of the elements to layout both the exterior and interior of Tony’s new book on the Create Space platform for self-publishing. The book goes through a thorough review from the Amazon.com owned Create Space team, and upon final approval – T&B has Tony order a physical copy of his newly created book to inspect in-person before launching the final product to the Amazon.com store. We are now ready for launch!

Final Steps For “Go Time”

Understanding that Social Media would play a large role in Tony’s marketing and promotion, the T&B team began integrating the design elements into Tony’s social profiles. This included customizing images for use on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram and more.

The final steps were to create a series of promotional ads that could be used with Social timelines, as well as banners for use on Tony’s site and other sites promoting the book. Congratulations to Tony on his successful launch of A Storyteller’s Guide To A Grace-Filled Life. This project was a ton of fun to work on and so gratifying to see during launch. We appreciate the opportunity to play a role is this project, and wish Tony much success on not only this book, but the others to come in his Storyteller’s series.

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